Time has changed drastically and with changing era, value of relationships has also changed to a great extent. A number of girls want to take care of their own parents but wish to be separated from their in-laws. You can find even women who make desperate attempts to separate their husbands from aged parents just because they want to enjoy their lives or don’t want to take responsibilities! But enough of this now…
The Supreme Court of India has given a judgment according to which if the wife of a Hindu man tries to separate him from his old parents and stops him from providing them shelter and support, then he can get a divorce from his wife on this basis.
The judicial bench of Justices Anil R. Dave and L. Nageshwara Rao has observed that taking care of old parents is a “pious obligation” for the son and if his wife is trying to separate him from his parents, then it is an act of cruelty on her part. She has no right to separate the son from his parents just because she wants to enjoy his complete earnings.
Justice Dave also said that living separately from parents is a part of western culture and it is not followed in our culture.
Justice Dave wrote,
“It is not a common practice or desirable culture for a Hindu son in India to get separated from his parents on getting married at the instance of the wife, especially when the son is the only earning member in the family. A son, brought up and given education by his parents, has a moral and legal obligation to take care and maintain the parents, when they become old and when they have either no income or have a meager income.”
The court also said that in normal situations, wife has to live with the family of husband after marriage.
Justice Dave further adds,
“She becomes integral to and forms part of the family of the husband and normally without any justifiable strong reason, she would never insist that her husband should get separated from the family and live only with her.”
The judgment came when the court was looking into the divorce of a Karnataka-based couple who got married in 1992 but got divorced after the husband alleged about the cruelty carried out by his wife. He gave examples of his wife’s weird behavior; she used to doubt on him for having an affair with the maid; however in reality, that maid never worked at their house.
In another example, the wife tried to commit suicide as her husband was not getting separated from his parents; luckily she was saved just on time. The court also talked about the trauma that a husband goes through when the wife tries to commit suicide. The court said, “The mere idea with regard to facing legal consequences would put a husband under tremendous stress.”
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